It feels like there are two games of tug-of-war going on, and in each, the American people are the rope.
One is the battle of wills between state and federal governments. The other is the on-going fight between businesses and health experts. And Americans are getting pulled in so many different directions, we don’t know which way is up.
The federal government says it can force states to lift lockdowns and social distancing. State governments and constitutional scholars say otherwise. Businesses want to save a crashing economy and health experts want to save lives.
President Trump and his administration have continued to push to reopen the economy sooner rather than later, though Trump has gotten very good at saying one thing at the podium and tweeting another. Trump declared via tweet that he had total authority over reopening the country. But once reminded that he’s a president, not a king, Trump benevolently announced he was authorizing the states to make their own decisions. But even as Trump stood at the podium and said governors knew what was best for their states, he took to Twitter and stoked protests in Michigan, Minnesota and Virginia that flouted social distancing procedures and called for governors to ease lockdowns.
Businesses beg to reopen, but health experts warn we haven’t reached our peak and lifting restrictions now could cause a second wave of COVID-19 infections and deaths. A tanked economy is a scary thing. The Great Depression still haunts us as a nation, though some feel its specter more keenly than others. For younger generations, the dark shadow of the 2008 recession still lingers. We’re all afraid of what these closures mean for us — individually and collectively. We fear breadlines and unemployment queues. We weep over lost retirements and savings. We count pennies now, because when loan forbearance ends, interests start accruing again and debt collectors come knocking, we pray we’ll have enough to survive.
We’re terrified of our economic future and afraid for our current health, but we should be worried about our future health as well. History teaches us when pandemics erupt, illness comes in waves. The influenza outbreak of 1918 came in three waves over the course of a year. Globally, 500 million people were infected and 50 million died; the U.S. alone lost 675,000 lives. In September 1918, Philadelphia’s mayor scoffed at the pandemic and allowed the city’s Liberty Loan parade to go on as planned. Within 10 days, Philadelphia had 200,000 new cases and 1,000 deaths.
About 100 years later, we’re caught up in another pandemic-fueled tug-of-war. Stuck in the middle as the federal government tries to circumvent a second depression and our president shores up his election campaign; as governors fight to find the balance between saving people’s livelihoods and saving people’s lives, as we realize how entwined those two things are; as businesses fight to stay afloat and employees fight to survive.
We have been here before, caught in this tug-of-war between preserving life and maintaining our lives. Now, are we going to repeat history or learn from it?
Morgantown Area News
'Wednesday, April 24, 2024'
